Anarchism vs Marxism

[Fairfax]

Is it normal to be completely undecided on which you are committed to? I honestly can't come to a conclusion.

Are there any good sources where I can get help with this? Or anyone here who could perhaps help me out?

I like both, but if I'm going to be explaining to people about communism, I'd sort of have to commit to one of them to explain how it would work out if you see what I mean. I don't really want to say 'I don't know', that wont help me at all.

Any information would be great.

Thank you :)

[Tjis]

Why not both?

Anarchism and Marxism are traditions rather than ideologies. Both have their roots in the first workers international, where they split and subsequently developed semi-independently. All that being an anarchist or a marxist really means is what history you identify with.

Neither anarchism nor marxism is a unified unchanging theory. Tendencies have developed in both traditions that are actually closer to eachother than to many of the tendencies of their 'own kind'. The divide between anarchism and marxism is artificial and harmful.

My advice is, study both, discover what's useful in both traditions and discard whatever dogma holds them back.

[Fairfax]

Sure, I totally understand that! I do really like both traditions to be honest. I don't feel I'll ever say I'm exclusively only one of them.

I do however feel that if I don't say to someone who is asking me about it that I hold exclusively to one of them...they may think I'm indecisive or rather have no confidence in my thinking.

I don't like the divide either.

Thanks for the message though, I guess people are just going to have to get used to the fact that I appreciate both and don;t mind being called either :)

[Thirsty Crow]

Why not both?

Anarchism and Marxism are traditions rather than ideologies. Both have their roots in the first workers international, where they split and subsequently developed semi-independently. All that being an anarchist or a marxist really means is what history you identify with.This. Although, to be fair, I think that some differences of approach developed as well during the course of the time, for instance, the focus on individual freedom within the anarchist tradition.


Neither anarchism nor marxism is a unified unchanging theory. Tendencies have developed in both traditions that are actually closer to eachother than to many of the tendencies of their 'own kind'. The divide between anarchism and marxism is artificial and harmful.And this, as well.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Well it all really depends on how you think we should get to a communist society, your strategies and tactics. We can sit here all day and pretend like there are only little differences between anarchists and communists theoretically but play them out in reality and you'll see the differences. For example most of the communists say that a party organization is needed to organize the working class into which will lead in the fight. Most anarchists think creating a party is anti-thetical to working class liberation and some think so of formal organizations in general even.

[the debater]

I also wonder about the strategy of focusing on city mayor positions? Perhaps we could have a bunch of Leftist mayors running for office across many different cities across the world. Once socialist policies start working effectively in many different locations, it will become vastly more popular, and national politicians and state/provincial politicians will have no choice but to listen to the people rather than to lobbyists and to rich guys. Does everyone understand the point I'm trying to make here? Running for mayor may be more effective than running for a governorship, presidency, or prime minister position, etc, etc.

[freecommunist]

I also wonder about the strategy of focusing on city mayor positions? Perhaps we could have a bunch of Leftist mayors running for office across many different cities across the world. Once socialist policies start working effectively in many different locations, it will become vastly more popular, and national politicians and state/provincial politicians will have no choice but to listen to the people rather than to lobbyists and to rich guys. Does everyone understand the point I'm trying to make here? Running for mayor may be more effective than running for a governorship, presidency, or prime minister position, etc, etc.

And where do you see the working class in all this?

[Thirsty Crow]

Well it all really depends on how you think we should get to a communist society, your strategies and tactics. We can sit here all day and pretend like there are only little differences between anarchists and communists theoretically but play them out in reality and you'll see the differences. For example most of the communists say that a party organization is needed to organize the working class into which will lead in the fight. Most anarchists think creating a party is anti-thetical to working class liberation and some think so of formal organizations in general even.
Yet many anarchists organize within political organizations which are conceived of as a very close approximation to what some Marxists have to say on the role and position of the party among the class. And some Marxists would reject the view that the party organizes the working class.

[Fairfax]

Well it all really depends on how you think we should get to a communist society, your strategies and tactics. We can sit here all day and pretend like there are only little differences between anarchists and communists theoretically but play them out in reality and you'll see the differences. For example most of the communists say that a party organization is needed to organize the working class into which will lead in the fight. Most anarchists think creating a party is anti-thetical to working class liberation and some think so of formal organizations in general even.

That's what my problem is! I see the practicality in both but can't strongly say I prefer one over the other.

Maybe in time I'll know more about them both to really investigate what I think would be more suitable to my thinking.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Yet many anarchists organize within political organizations which are conceived of as a very close approximation to what some Marxists have to say on the role and position of the party among the class. And some Marxists would reject the view that the party organizes the working class.

And many think party organizations are bad or are Bakunist conspirators. Some anarchists want to technology destroyed along with most of the population. Some communists don't support the idea of the party leading the revolution, some communists think we could win through terrorism. If there are anarchists that want to join a party that leads a communist revolution which creates the DotP then more power to the anarchists in name only.

[ckaihatsu]

[A]narchists are known for their advocacy of decentralization [...]. In the process of anti-capitalist struggle decentralism is a revolutionary *weakness* and puts anarchists to the *right* of Trotskyists and any other vanguardists


The Left/Right Distinction is Bourgeois

http://www.revleft.com/vb/left-right-distinction-p2675524/index.html#post2675524

[The Feral Underclass]

Bakunist conspirators.

What are Bakuninist conspirators?

[Thirsty Crow]

And many think party organizations are bad or are Bakunist conspirators.I assume that this relates to insurrectionary anarchism, yet it is only the historical analogy of the actions by Bakunin and people grouped around him in the International that you can muster as an argument (it's hard to see just what kind of a conspiracy that would be)


Some anarchists want to technology destroyed along with most of the population.I believe primitivists first pose the problem differently, and secondly that they are hardly part of the political currents of the anarchist tradition, according to people and organizations working within it nowdays

Some communists don't support the idea of the party leading the revolution, some communists think we could win through terrorism.That's news to me.


If there are anarchists that want to join a party that leads a communist revolution which creates the DotP then more power to the anarchists in name only.Yet more phrase mongering. Leading the revolution that creates the dotp. Too bad that tells us nothing of the positions of communists advocating this, because of its vague rhetoric.

And secondly, the point is that your implicit idea is that anarchists are anti-organizational and anti-political (in a sense that is broader than the one highlighting election campaigns). This is far from the truth, and it is really dubious what to make of existing anarchist political organizations. Are they mere study clubs in disguise? Circles of friends? What exactly?


What are Bakuninist conspirators?
S/he's stuck in First International recreation society, don't even ask.

[argeiphontes]

I see the practicality in both...

Don't worry. You'll soon learn that any plan that's too practical is doomed to fail for theoretical reasons. ;)

[Fairfax]

Don't worry. You'll soon learn that any plan that's too practical is doomed to failed for theoretical reasons. ;)

Hehe! It seems that may be the case. I'm still very new to all of this so still trying to work things out :grin:

[the debater]

And where do you see the working class in all this?

I see pro-working class policies being implemented more easily from the bottom up rather than a higher starting point and going up. A city mayor may not have to deal with as much tension as a governor or president would, in terms of partisanship and gridlock. I can only speak for America though.

On a side note, I think I've actually been a libertarian socialist the entire time I've been here on RevLeft. I don't know why I called myself a democratic socialist a few posts ago, maybe I just had Hugo Chavez on my mind? :confused:

[Art Vandelay]

The divide between anarchism and marxism is artificial and harmful.

I think this is not only demonstrably false, but also an extremely dangerous conviction. Marxism and anarchism use differing methodologies, have many historical points of contention, etc... but that doesn't mean I don't consider many anarchists comrades.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Tjis already said it, but I'm going to echo it.

Take from whatever you think is workable from both traditions, and apply them to your own thought. Both strains have a lot to offer, why would you cast aside one for the other?


I have a quote from Abraham Lincoln that I've posted on this board more than a few times, but it is completely true:


"I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views."I think one of the biggest problems with the left is that far too many cling to various strains of socialist thought the way that some cling to their local college football team. An ideology - especially an ideology that's supposed to be based on science and reason - should not emulate the rivalry between UGA and Georgia Tech.

[Art Vandelay]

I think one of the biggest problems with the left is that far too many cling to various strains of socialist thought the way that some cling to their local college football team. An ideology - especially an ideology that's supposed to be based on science and reason - should not emulate the rivalry between UGA and Georgia Tech.

While I think that this has an element of truth to it, I also think that to a certain extent, this criticism can serve as a substitution for argumentation, in an effort to dismiss actual and important theoretical differences.

[freecommunist]

I see pro-working class policies being implemented more easily from the bottom up rather than a higher starting point and going up. A city mayor may not have to deal with as much tension as a governor or president would, in terms of partisanship and gridlock. I can only speak for America though.

On a side note, I think I've actually been a libertarian socialist the entire time I've been here on RevLeft. I don't know why I called myself a democratic socialist a few posts ago, maybe I just had Hugo Chavez on my mind? :confused:

Libertarian socialists are normally associated with class struggle anarchists (anarchist-communists or anarcho-syndicalism) and which are generally totally opposed to the idea of parliamentarism that you seem to be putting forward.
Social democracy is what you are suggesting. Communism cannot be built by "policies" created by so-called socialist politicians and then handed down to the working class.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

Take from whatever you think is workable from both traditions, and apply them to your own thought. Both strains have a lot to offer, why would you cast aside one for the other?
I second this. I've learned from both traditions. It's why I consider myself a libertarian Marxist or a Marxian anarcho-communist.

[argeiphontes]

many historical points of contention, etc...

For some historical background, there is This Article (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/bio/robertson-ann.htm) about the philosophical roots of the Marx/Bakunin "split" (Marx had Bakunin thrown out of the First International).

That being said, "philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it". That applies to Marx himself, and also Bakunin.

That being said, I mostly agree with the Chomsky quote at the top of the page there, because you see that reflected to some extent in the modern attitudes. None of this is a "science" and it's not supposed to be dogma, yet that's how things are justified. That's why I made the joke about practical plans failing for theoretical reasons. (I haven't read any Marx in years and am running on the fumes of intuition, but that's basically why I identify as a 'libertarian socialist'.)

Just my opinion. YMMV. "Hike your own hike" as they say on the Appalachian Trail. :)

[ckaihatsu]

I think one of the biggest problems with the left is that far too many cling to various strains of socialist thought the way that some cling to their local college football team. An ideology - especially an ideology that's supposed to be based on science and reason - should not emulate the rivalry between UGA and Georgia Tech.





[M]arxism and anarchism use differing methodologies, have many historical points of contention, etc... but that doesn't mean I don't consider many anarchists comrades.


Just as the 'united front' is a tactic used on an as-needed basis, we can also use 'platforming' on an issue-by-issue basis, and in-general over revolutionary issues in common.


The Meanings of Spatial Relationships

http://s6.postimg.org/rciywyagd/130927_Meanings_of_Spatial_Relationships_aoi_xcf.j pg (http://postimg.org/image/rciywyagd/)

[the debater]

Libertarian socialists are normally associated with class struggle anarchists (anarchist-communists or anarcho-syndicalism) and which are generally totally opposed to the idea of parliamentarism that you seem to be putting forward.
Social democracy is what you are suggesting. Communism cannot be built by "policies" created by so-called socialist politicians and then handed down to the working class.

I guess it can depend on one's situation. If you're a factory worker in China or Malaysia who's only earning a few dollars a day, then violent revolution is of course the only viable course of action in getting any socialist policies enacted. But, if you're a middle class suburbanite in the U.S., acting violent is only going to cause you to look silly, and the best plan for socialism is probably through democratic reforms. So perhaps the best course of action to implement socialist policies can change depending on one's situation. In some cases, violence may be necessary. In other cases, peaceful democratic solutions will probably be more useful.

[Marxaveli]

Although I have the upmost respect for anarchists and their movement, there are fundamental problems with it, and thus why I am a Marxist and not an anarchist.

The first main problem I have with anarchism, is that it doesn't seem to be a cohesive system of analysis. Whereas Marx and Engels sought to understand the laws of capitalism and how it functions, and build a scientific social theory based around their findings, anarchism seems to operate on a more ethical basis. For them, capitalism and its state apparatus is simply authoritarian and thus it should be ended and replaced with a more democratic system. And while I agree with this, it isn't a very useful basis to creating a revolutionary programme that will produce social change. Marxism is very cohesive, scientific, and analytical. This isn't to say that it cannot be ethical, but it generally isn't used in such a way, because it shouldn't be.

A second problem, and it has perhaps some relation to the above problem, is that anarchism has generally been anti-intellectual. I've seen many anarchists think that Marxism is authoritarian and elitist - perhaps even condescending toward the working class in the sense that "big words" or thoughts are not understood by the proletariat. This accusation in itself though, is elitist since it makes the assumption that workers cannot educate themselves. This is problematic because we are not starting a book drive, we are advocating for the complete and utter destruction of an entire social order. Such change requires big ideas and an intellectual capacity for it to even be feasible.

There are other issues, but those are the two main ones as to why I am not an anarchist.

[Igor]

Although I have the upmost respect for anarchists and their movement, there are fundamental problems with it, and thus why I am a Marxist and not an anarchist.

appreciated


The first main problem I have with anarchism, is that it doesn't seem to be a cohesive system of analysis. Whereas Marx and Engels sought to understand the laws of capitalism and how it functions, and build a scientific social theory based around their findings, anarchism seems to operate on a more ethical basis.right. but i don't think you're 'getting' anarchism here - it's a quite specific thing in some aspects (the an-archy part, abolition of state & hierarchy) and extremely non-specific in many of the others. while there certainly are anarchists who reject marxism or don't identify with the revolutionary left, there are also a lot of us who do, and i'd say we form the core of those who actually participate in any kind of struggles. the basic idea behind anarchism doesn't exclude marxist analysis of the world, and that's why anarcho-communism remains a thing. we don't operate on an any more "ethical" basis than other marxists do.


For them, capitalism and its state apparatus is simply authoritarian and thus it should be ended and replaced with a more democratic system.

any anarchist worth a damn is a revolutionary and revolution in itself is a pretty extreme act of authority. i've very rarely heard this critique of capitalism from anarchists


A second problem, and it has perhaps some relation to the above problem, is that anarchism has generally been anti-intellectual. I've seen many anarchists think that Marxism is authoritarian and elitist - perhaps even condescending toward the working class in the sense that "big words" or thoughts are not understood by the proletariat. This accusation in itself though, is elitist since it makes the assumption that workers cannot educate themselves. This is problematic because we are not starting a book drive, we are advocating for the complete and utter destruction of an entire social order. Such change requires big ideas and an intellectual capacity for it to even be feasible.

There are other issues, but those are the two main ones as to why I am not an anarchist.you're looking at this issue backwards imo. should we as a movement make our material as accessible as possible or should people just do the work to understand our lingo? the implication here isn't that the working class is stupid, it's just that they really don't have any reasons to educate themselves to understand the quite specific terminology a lot of left-wing lit uses. i don't really think the "elitism" you get in the left is a problem in the sense that it's a massive matter of principle for me, it's just that leftists are shooting themselves in the leg and keeping themselves less accessible because of that

[Ele'ill]

while there certainly are anarchists who reject marxism or don't identify with the revolutionary left, there are also a lot of us who do, and i'd say we form the core of those who actually participate in any kind of struggles.

I don't agree with this.

[argeiphontes]

The first main problem I have with anarchism, is that it doesn't seem to be a cohesive system of analysis. Whereas Marx and Engels sought to understand the laws of capitalism and how it functionsFor me and many other anarchists*, Marxism is the critique of capitalism. Historical materialism is the method of analysis of society, and even though I think there are multiple "currents" of causality, historical materialism has probably the greatest explanatory power of anything else that's been proposed. (I draw the line at dialectical materialism.)



And while I agree with [the authoritarian nature of the state], it isn't a very useful basis to creating a revolutionary programme that will produce social change. Marxism is very cohesive, scientific, and analytical.
I don't see how a revolutionary program follows from a critique of capitalism in such a direct way. (Serious question.) For example, why isn't Dictatorship of the Proletariat just a conjecture on Marx's part as to how to change society, created in the particular situation he was in?

It seems to me that the speculative parts of Marx about the future are lumped in with the analysis. If the analysis is correct, then the program must also be correct. Unless there's some link I'm not aware of, that's a mistake.

And that's part of the reason I'm an anarchist (libertarian socialist) rather than a communist, although I do like Pannekoek and in general think that since the goal is the same, Pan Leftism of some sort should be possible. But dogma reigns instead of grasping at current possibilities, which is arguably what Marx would have intended since he was the original historical and dialectical materialist.

* I did briefly have 'Council Communist' as my primary tendency but I take it all back now. It was too romantic. For a long time before joining this site, I've identified as a libertarian socialist.

[argeiphontes]

Another benefit of anarchism is its action orientation, which shouldn't be discounted. If anyone changes society, I think it'll be the people working to do it, in one way or another.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I assume that this relates to insurrectionary anarchism, yet it is only the historical analogy of the actions by Bakunin and people grouped around him in the International that you can muster as an argument (it's hard to see just what kind of a conspiracy that would be)

I believe primitivists first pose the problem differently, and secondly that they are hardly part of the political currents of the anarchist tradition, according to people and organizations working within it nowdays
That's news to me.

Yet more phrase mongering. Leading the revolution that creates the dotp. Too bad that tells us nothing of the positions of communists advocating this, because of its vague rhetoric.

And secondly, the point is that your implicit idea is that anarchists are anti-organizational and anti-political (in a sense that is broader than the one highlighting election campaigns). This is far from the truth, and it is really dubious what to make of existing anarchist political organizations. Are they mere study clubs in disguise? Circles of friends? What exactly?


S/he's stuck in First International recreation society, don't even ask.
Good job, you've broken through my phrase mongering! Yeah I couldn't figure out any bad names associated with left-communists(specifically ones that don't see the party as leading the revolution) so I just called them the people who don't think the party will lead the revolution. These were vague on purpose because you weren't supposed to care much about the phrase mongering because the point in even bringing them up(and to start with Bakunin because that is seen as the big split that happened in the workers movement between anarchists and Marxists)is to say that there are many different groups under the two different umbrella terms anarchist and Marxist with their own strategies and tactics to get to communism and so some of them may look similar but they're different ultimately when it comes to the state.

This isn't to say that I don't think anarchists are allies and shouldn't be part of the movement but how can one seriously sit there and say there's not some cognitive dissonance going on when there are self described anarchists supporting this or that state. Take Emma Goldman for example, Russian Revolution happens, she's exiled there and basically goes straight to working for the Soviet state enthusiastically. So the Soviet form of workers having collective authority was alright? So what's all the fuss about "anarchism" about? Are there differences, can we go forward united in some way with them?

People give "libertarian socialists/libertarian-Marxists" shit for not having much of a concrete ideology or cut and paste dogma to stamp on everything but I think it's more honest of a label then anarchist who will in situations support/work towards/establish a state based on the working class' authority.

[human strike]

Whilst being highly influenced by both in different ways, I ultimately reject both (or certainly their orthodox forms at the very least) for the things they have in common. You don't have to be a marxist or an anarchist to be a communist.

[Art Vandelay]

For me and many other anarchists*, Marxism is the critique of capitalism. Historical materialism is the method of analysis of society, and even though I think there are multiple "currents" of causality, historical materialism has probably the greatest explanatory power of anything else that's been proposed. (I draw the line at dialectical materialism.)

I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you say 'I draw the line at dialectical materialism,' but just to be clear the term dialectical materialism, is interchangeable with 'the Marxist method;' the two are synonyms. Furthermore, historical materialism, was the result of the dialectical materialist paradigm (ie: the Marxist paradigm) being applied to historical and sociological analysis. The two are fundamentally connected. You cannot be a Marxist, without being a dialectical materialist; I don't care who disagrees (and I know there are some on the site who do), they're wrong. I'd perhaps even go as far to say that you can't have a proper grasp on historical materialism, until you have a proper grasp on dialectical materialism.


I don't see how a revolutionary program follows from a critique of capitalism in such a direct way. (Serious question.) For example, why isn't Dictatorship of the Proletariat just a conjecture on Marx's part as to how to change society, created in the particular situation he was in?

The concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat isn't mere conjecture on his part, since it stems from a scientific analysis of the ways in which a mode of production is established/overthrown. I'm really not trying to be rude here, but I think perhaps its time you dust off your Marx (since you mentioned its been forever since you've read him).

To say that Marx's conviction in the absolute necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat, only applied to the specific period in history he lived, shows a fundamental misunderstanding of his line of argumentation. Marx didn't conceive of the dictatorship of the proletariat for no reason, it wasn't simply an idea which came to him; it was a deduction he made from his scientific sociological research. Marx is to sociology, what Darwin is to natural science. Through applying dialectical materialism to sociological study, Marx began to uncover a certain internal logic to the ways in which societies developed. He realized that underlying base of society, was ultimately economic in nature and that due to the way in which society organized production (ie: the mode of production), socioeconomic classes (with antagonistic interests) were born due to their differing relationships to the means of production. This lead to not only a ruling class (capitalist class in capitalism, feudal class in feudalism, etc.), but also a revolutionary class (proletariat in capitalism, capitalists in feudalism, etc.), in any given mode of production.

Marx didn't see the necessity of a transitional state for no reason in particular, it stemmed from his scientific analysis of society. Marx realized that the state, was a byproduct of class society, ie: as long as classes exist, so will states. He also understood that the primary* (and I stress primary, since my analysis has been accused of being monolithic in the past) function of the state was to serve as a tool of class suppression, ie: the institution through which, the ruling class in any given mode of production, enforces its hegemony. As long as classes exist, so will the state; so if you think, immediately following the 'seizure of state power' (as Marxists call it), that classes and states can be abolished in one stroke (as if these are even things which can be 'abolished,' not sociological developments that will die out when the material conditions necessitate their destruction), then I think you have more in common with Stalin, then any Marxist, since that would be upholding a form of the theory of socialism in one country. This is why the anarchist utopian fantasy of smashing the state day 1 of revolution, creating statelessness, is fundamentally an idealist notion. It ignores the material reality of what necessitates a states existence in the first place, it supposes that if the proletariat simply wills enough, it can transform material conditions overnight.

*I stress primary, because I am more then willing to acknowledge that states serve further purposes (as well as the fact that the modern capitalist state carries with it new aspects), then simply the monopoly of force within a given boundary; Marx said as much himself, when he made the statement that the state was the tool for managing the totality of the affairs of the ruling class. That being said, the primary function of any state, is to preserve class hegemony.


It seems to me that the speculative parts of Marx about the future are lumped in with the analysis. If the analysis is correct, then the program must also be correct. Unless there's some link I'm not aware of, that's a mistake.

Except there was nothing 'speculative' about Marx! His 'scientific socialism' arose in direct opposition to the utopian socialists of his day. That was precisely his point! One cannot simply concoct a ideal society in their head, then attempt to make it a material reality. These idealistic utopias can never take root, since they lack a connection to the material conditions, there is no material base for which these ideas could even take root, if people wanted them to, since it doesn't correlate to the existing reality of the mode of production. I mean I can think of a Bertell Ollman quote that elucidates the point rather well, but I think you should be able to get the jist of what I'm saying here. To suppose that the sociological developments which are possible, are anything but intrinsically and inherently intertwined with the current material conditions, is foolish.


But dogma reigns instead of grasping at current possibilities, which is arguably what Marx would have intended since he was the original historical and dialectical materialist.

Marx & Engels were materialists; if there was anyone who would want to be understood as being constrained by the material conditions of their time, it would be those two. There is nothing dogmatic about their work, Marxism literally stems from the premise that everything is constantly changing, in motion, in flux. But don't conflate upholding fundamental aspects of the Marxist method (like those who denounce 'Marxists' who want to scrap DM) with 'dogmatism,' because the two are quite different.


* I did briefly have 'Council Communist' as my primary tendency but I take it all back now. It was too romantic. For a long time before joining this site, I've identified as a libertarian socialist.

I'm about as unapologetically authoritarian as they come. ;)

[Os Cangaceiros]

Take Emma Goldman for example, Russian Revolution happens, she's exiled there and basically goes straight to working for the Soviet state enthusiastically. So the Soviet form of workers having collective authority was alright? So what's all the fuss about "anarchism" about? Are there differences, can we go forward united in some way with them?.

Emma Goldman was critical of the Bolshevik government in "My Disillusionment With Russia"

[Thirsty Crow]

I don't see how a revolutionary program follows from a critique of capitalism in such a direct way. (Serious question.) For example, why isn't Dictatorship of the Proletariat just a conjecture on Marx's part as to how to change society, created in the particular situation he was in?
The class dictatorship, the revolutionary governance of the proletariat follows from the fact that it is the bourgeois state that is the ultimate guarantee of continued capitalist rule, and therefore that the working class has as its first step to constitute its own political power as the prerequisite of communization - which is the actual process of establishing new relations of production. This also follows from the fact that not all national working classes will indeed enter the revolutionary process at the same time, and therefore the dictatorship is based on general workers militia - arming the revolutionary proletariat, due to the threat of existing capitalist states.

I think it is a matter of fact that enabling the bourgeoisie to hold on to remnants of its power would be a near disaster in the context of escalating social conflict, insecurity, and possibly war.

Now, it is altogether a different matter that anarchists have a semantic problem with this formulation. For Marxists, when the function of repression remains a vital one, and indeed I think it necessarily does in any revolutionary situation, we're dealing with the state, no matter how is political power actually organized. I for one do not advocate the historical model of the Soviet state fused with the party, and in fact think it is at least counter-productive for the purpose of workers' power, and in the last instance itself a product of counter-revolution.


It seems to me that the speculative parts of Marx about the future are lumped in with the analysis. If the analysis is correct, then the program must also be correct. Unless there's some link I'm not aware of, that's a mistake.
There's nothing speculative about programmatic statements. They represent a plan of action based on positions derived from the close and rigorous analysis of history. Of course, this doesn't mean one is absolutely certain that events will develop and occur in this and only this way - that would be crystal ball gazing. But to produce assessment of probability and the desired courses of action flowing from this, derived from a clear understanding of the present moment and its historical formation, that is necessary.



But dogma reigns instead of grasping at current possibilities, which is arguably what Marx would have intended since he was the original historical and dialectical materialist.Well, yeah, I'm afraid dogma reigns supreme in contemporary leftist and communist movements.

[Fairfax]

Whilst being highly influenced by both in different ways, I ultimately reject both (or certainly their orthodox forms at the very least) for the things they have in common. You don't have to be a marxist or an anarchist to be a communist.

I do like this.

[Thirsty Crow]

Good job, you've broken through my phrase mongering! The phrase about a specific political organization leading the working class can be found in: Stalinist works, Maoist, Trot, left comm, and even anarchist. It is no more than a phrase without any elaboration. You, of course, did not do any such thing.


Yeah I couldn't figure out any bad names associated with left-communists(specifically ones that don't see the party as leading the revolution) so I just called them the people who don't think the party will lead the revolution.Yeah, and you're wrong. I for one advocate the revolutionary party leading the revolution along side the workers' vanguard (i.e. those sections of the class who are most militant and far reaching in their actions; this phrasing should make it clear that I do not think the party constitutes the vanguard; perhaps a part of it, perhaps something entirely specific). Though, not in the sense of acting as a command center and afterwards as a sole focal point of power. When I say lead, I imply the relationship between the party and the class whereby class militants, organized in the party, intervene and work in class organs of potential power on the basis of advocacy and argument (so called dual power situation), and not usurp and dismember those as class organs (opposed to party organs).


...there are many different groups under the two different umbrella terms anarchist and Marxist with their own strategies and tactics to get to communism and so some of them may look similar but they're different ultimately when it comes to the state. You can't really get to the bottom of this with inherited rhetoric and superficially investigated positions. My contention is that parts of the anarchist current and the Marxist current actually advocate a near indistinguishable form of class power based on the active participation of the broadest layers of the class in political, social, economic, and cultural life. The historical baggage of the split in the International and especially that of moribound ideologies of the traditional workers movement is a deadweight mostly which prevents the recognition of possibilities for regrouping here and now, based on clear political understanding.


This isn't to say that I don't think anarchists are allies and shouldn't be part of the movement but how can one seriously sit there and say there's not some cognitive dissonance going on when there are self described anarchists supporting this or that state. I believe this is due to the initial formation of political power through soviets, which is the state but anarchists, in their lingo, do not consider it a state. But subsequent developments have of course, as others have pointed out, rendered this assessment and enthusiasm obsolete.


So the Soviet form of workers having collective authority was alright?There were historical modifications and deformations of what you call the soviet form. This is the point. As with the opposition currents arising in the Russian CP, most starkly pronounced in the case of the Workers' Group, so with anarchists - the initial potentials and structures of class power, with subsequent developments, are practically eradicated, and need to be reanimated.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Emma Goldman was critical of the Bolshevik government in "My Disillusionment With Russia"

Rosa Luxemburg was critical of the Soviet government and was still a supporter. Emma Goldman upon arrival enthusiastically started working with the Soviet government. Yes later she was not supportive but she did see something worth working for in the Soviet state which seems to beg the questions I asked. In her case a Soviet STATE is worth supporting and working for which seems to say some forms of state power can be seen as legitimate to her. Now she is just one historical example but we're speaking of anarchists today. If there were anarchists who would see a state set up by the working class and who see it as a legitimate force to join and work for then it seems to contradict anarchist rhetoric.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Rosa Luxemburg was critical of the Soviet government and was still a supporter. Emma Goldman upon arrival enthusiastically started working with the Soviet government. Yes later she was not supportive but she did see something worth working for in the Soviet state which seems to beg the questions I asked. In her case a Soviet STATE is worth supporting and working for which seems to say some forms of state power can be seen as legitimate to her.

Well it's been a while since I read MDIR, but she was essentially thrown out of the USA and dumped in Russia. In those circumstances it would be hard not to say, welp, might as well give this Russian revolution thing a chance, anyway. And yeah, others (and maybe her too, can't remember) kissed the ground of the site of the first worker's revolution when they first arrived in Russia.

That honeymoon period ended pretty damn fast, though, as evident by the fact that her "disillusionment" started around 1920.


Now she is just one historical example but we're speaking of anarchists today. If there were anarchists who would see a state set up by the working class and who see it as a legitimate force to join and work for then it seems to contradict anarchist rhetoric.

Well there's a whole range of anarchist thought, ranging from some of the more philosophical or individualist anarchists who reject all authority as being illegitimate, to "Bolsheviks in black"...however we're so far away from any of the "classical proletarian revolutions" (ie the Russian Revolution, the German Revolution & the Spanish Revolution) that the question seems mostly academic at this point.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

The phrase about a specific political organization leading the working class can be found in: Stalinist works, Maoist, Trot, left comm, and even anarchist. It is no more than a phrase without any elaboration. You, of course, did not do any such thing.Yeah I think you're digging way deeper than you should. I meant to be as broad and simplistic as possible. I don't know where the point of contention is here at this point.


Yeah, and you're wrong.Really? Paul Mattick? I read on the Marxist Internet Archive he was. Did I say left-communists in general? No, I made sure to qualify(in parenthesis) specifically left-communists which don't believe in the party leading the revolution.

But this is so besides the point. Someone made a thread asking about anarchism and Marxism and which they should choose. Do you not agree that the difference between Marxism and anarchism(at least communist anarchists), broadly speaking, is their strategies and tactics when it comes to the question of the state? I mean I'm sorry if I had the idea in my head that anarchists are against the authority of the state and that Marxists are for the workers taking state power. To further elaborate I gave an example of how most Marxists see building a political party as part of the general strategy while most anarchists are opposed to this strategy. Is this not true? How many anarchist political parties do we see? Is this not a real difference that when played out in real life has real consequences?


You can't really get to the bottom of thisThe bottom of what? I'm not even sure you and I are trying to get to the bottom of the same thing.
My contention is that parts of the anarchist current and the Marxist current actually advocate a near indistinguishable form of class power based on the active participation of the broadest layers of the class in political, social, economic, and cultural life. For example?
The historical baggage of the split in the International and especially that of moribound ideologies of the traditional workers movement is a deadweight mostly which prevents the recognition of possibilities for regrouping here and now, based on clear political understanding.The historical split in the International wasn't the first time there have been disagreements in the movement between those that believe in some form of state authority and those that reject any notion of a state. And it continues today because it really is a contenscious subject matter with real consequences on how you go about the struggle. This is simple enough of a concept. There can be regrouping I do believe so, but it does not help to act like there are no differences. For gods sake Marxists can't even agree on half the shit.


I believe this is due to the initial formation of political power through soviets, which is the state but anarchists, in their lingo, do not consider it a state."In their lingo". And this is really what it seems to come down to a lot. Do we have seperate definitions of the state? It would seem so. Which is why I'm perfectly willing to admit that there's possibilities for some unity. But like I said in my first post in the thread, it all really comes down to strategy and tactics and your ideology does have an effect on how you relate to those. But really it seems strange how the Soviets led by the Bolsheviks wasn't seen as a state even though it was so clearly one since day one of the October Revolution?I really don't think you can make a convincing argument saying anarchists had no idea the Bolsheviks would create a state when they said "All Power to the Soviets." I'm pretty sure they recognized it was a state(reading Emma Goldmans account it's pretty clear she knows that it's a state).


There were historical modifications and deformations of what you call the soviet form. This is the point. As with the opposition currents arising in the Russian CP, most starkly pronounced in the case of the Workers' Group, so with anarchists - the initial potentials and structures of class power, with subsequent developments, are practically eradicated, and need to be reanimated.
Of course I know there were modifications but from the very beginning it seems pretty obvious the Soviet government was a state. I mean within the first week it's decreeing laws and threatening trials in courts and saying things like all mineral wealth belongs to the state. Was it not obvious to the anarchists, at least to the ones you were referencing?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Is it normal to be completely undecided on which you are committed to? I honestly can't come to a conclusion.

Are there any good sources where I can get help with this? Or anyone here who could perhaps help me out?

I like both, but if I'm going to be explaining to people about communism, I'd sort of have to commit to one of them to explain how it would work out if you see what I mean. I don't really want to say 'I don't know', that wont help me at all.

Any information would be great.

Thank you :)

Don't worry about labels, it's normal and probably healthy to not learn about politics with a set tendency or traddition in mind. Read, be active, ask people questions, allow yourself to be chanllenged in your ideas but don't be bullied or intimidated.

Start from the point of thinking about what you want to see, what you think is possible right now and how to get from here to there. It's not team sports, these groups of thought are just different generalized approaches to contemporary questions of revolution and liberation. The more you have a sense of what liberation means and entails, the better sense you will probably have of what will be necissary to achieve that and general groups of political thought will probably become more favored by you than others.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Well it's been a while since I read MDIR, but she was essentially thrown out of the USA and dumped in Russia. In those circumstances it would be hard not to say, welp, might as well give this Russian revolution thing a chance, anyway. And yeah, others (and maybe her too, can't remember) kissed the ground of the site of the first worker's revolution when they first arrived in Russia.

That honeymoon period ended pretty damn fast, though, as evident by the fact that her "disillusionment" started around 1920.I agree it would be hard not to join in. Then again there were anarchists in Russia who did not join the Soviet government and stood opposed to them. Not saying there wasn't plenty to be critical of or anything but it's not like she didn't have a choice and had to work for the Soviet government. But her dissilussionment started in 1920? So for two years she thought that the soviet state was a legitimate state why? We recognize it was a state for those years too right? So is it that she was opposed to what the revolution degenerated into over the years or what?



Well there's a whole range of anarchist thought, ranging from some of the more philosophical or individualist anarchists who reject all authority as being illegitimate, to "Bolsheviks in black"...however we're so far away from any of the "classical proletarian revolutions" (ie the Russian Revolution, the German Revolution & the Spanish Revolution) that the question seems mostly academic at this point.Seems mostly academic? At this point any talk of revolution seems purely academic but we're still talking right? Is it totally crazy to say anarchists reject the authority of the state these days? It's just academic in nature to say a anarchist supporting a state contradicts anarchist rhetoric by the fact that it contradicts basically the core principle of anarchist thought across the spectrum i.e. opposition to the state. Not just the theocratic states, or dictatorial states, but all states. Is this just pure academia in anarchist groups?

[The Feral Underclass]

But her dissilussionment started in 1920? So for two years she thought that the soviet state was a legitimate state why?

Was the Soviet "state" exactly the same in 1918 as it was in 1920? The most obvious, logical answer to your question is that the nature of the Soviet system was fundamentally different in 1918 to what it was in 1920, which is why her views changed...


We recognize it was a state for those years too right?

Marxists often distort the meaning of the state. For Marxists a state can be pretty much anything. The way that political authority was organised and exercised was clearly more tolerable to Goldman in 1918.


So is it that she was opposed to what the revolution degenerated into over the years or what?

The answer to that seems perfectly obvious...Since that's what happened...What point are you really trying to make here?


Seems mostly academic? At this point any talk of revolution seems purely academic but we're still talking right? Is it totally crazy to say anarchists reject the authority of the state these days? It's just academic in nature to say a anarchist supporting a state contradicts anarchist rhetoric by the fact that it contradicts basically the core principle of anarchist thought across the spectrum i.e. opposition to the state. Not just the theocratic states, or dictatorial states, but all states. Is this just pure academia in anarchist groups?

Why do you think anarchists oppose the state? That's a genuine question.

[The Feral Underclass]

Also, I don't really understand the point about anarchists being involved in the state is supposed to be? Some anarchists took more pragmatic view towards the communists seizing the state. Others did not.

Just because some anarchists felt that at the time it was more beneficial to just bite the bullet, isn't the basis of a criticism of the anarchist critique of the state. Very few Marxists have the right to make criticisms of people on the basis of principle vs pragmatism, since Marxists pretty much consistently abandon principle in favour of a "pragmatic" approaches.

[Blake's Baby]

Well it's been a while since I read MDIR, but she was essentially thrown out of the USA and dumped in Russia. In those circumstances it would be hard not to say, welp, might as well give this Russian revolution thing a chance, anyway. And yeah, others (and maybe her too, can't remember) kissed the ground of the site of the first worker's revolution when they first arrived in Russia.

That honeymoon period ended pretty damn fast, though, as evident by the fact that her "disillusionment" started around 1920...

No. That is really not what happened. She didn't just 'give this Russian revolution thing a chance'. She was deported to Russia late in 1919, and was from the beginning (she was only in Russia for 2 years) enthusiastic about some aspects of the situation there and horrified at others.

The Anarchists who took part in, and the Anarchists who came from outside to support, the revolution in Russia did so because they saw it as a movement/situation that had the potential to lead to greater human emancipation.

So did the Marxists who took part, or came from outside to support it (like John Reed).

The revolution quickly degenerated. It could hardly do anything else. Socialism in one country is impossible (so the situation in Russia, isolated as it was, could not move towards socialism). Unless Russia was to exist in stasis until the revolution in the rest of the world 'caught up' (as the Trotskyists believe) then it had to degenerate.

What other 'choices' are there (not that these are matters of policy but possibilities in the circumstances)? Moving forwards (not possible, the world revolution was 'blocked'); staying still (not possible, half a revolution is no revolution, as half a backflip is no backflip, half a bridge is no bridge, half a cure is no cure);or moving backwards under the crushing pressure of the state and the external capitalist world.

Goldman (and Berkman, and the other Anarchists who came to Russia; and the Anarchists in Russia; and many of the Marxists in Russia or who had supported the revolution) came to see that the drive to take the revolution forward was being overwhelmed by the tendencies that retarded and negated the revolution.

A rather quick and crass graphic to make the point:

http://i1274.photobucket.com/albums/y436/slothjabber/revolutiongraphic_zps7b654873.png

Before 1917, the reactionary forces were those of the Russia state; after 1917, they were the Bolsheviks - who increasingly were the Russian state. The problem was not the Bolsheviks themselves but, for want of a world revolution, their fusion with the state out of a desire to 'hold on to the gains of October'. What happened was they (and the working class) lost the gains of October anyway (short of a world revolution - =the revolution moving forward - Russia was doomed whatever happened) but also that the counter-revolution was ushered in by the Bolsheviks through the agency of the state machinery that they had created.

The soviets were the authentic vehicle of proletarian revolution; the 'council of people's commissars' that the Bolsheviks set up was one of the organs of state power that acted as a conservative, even bourgeois, institution. It wasn't 'workers' power' - it was 'party power'. But without the world revolution, even 'workers' power' would not have saved the revolution in Russia.





...
Well there's a whole range of anarchist thought, ranging from some of the more philosophical or individualist anarchists who reject all authority as being illegitimate, to "Bolsheviks in black"...however we're so far away from any of the "classical proletarian revolutions" (ie the Russian Revolution, the German Revolution & the Spanish Revolution) that the question seems mostly academic at this point.

What about the Paris Commune? The only one on that list that's really claimed by both Anarchists and Marxists? It was mostly Proudhonist Mutualists that where involved -that most Anarchists now wouldn't even recognise as Anarchists - but about whom Engels said 'if you want to know what the dictatorship of the proletariat looks like, look at the Commune'.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Blake, for the most part I think that post is the part of the ven-diagram where unorthodox trotskyism and left-communism overlap. Now, about them national liberation movements... :lol:

[Blake's Baby]

Left Comms tend to think Trotsky was a great revolutionary. Like Lenin. We're not totally opposed to them. But we don't think they're supermen either. They both have positives and negatives.

And the best 'unorthodox trotskyists' (Natalya, for example, or Munis and his group in Spain, or Stinas and his circle in Greece) came to Left Communist positions (at least for a while).

Of course, Bordiga defended Trotsky in the Communist International. And the precursors of the ICC in France helped to smuggle Trotskyists out of Marseille when the OGPU gave their names to the Gestapo. We regard Trotskyism (up until about 1941) as a proletarian current - a confused and backsliding one to be sure, and we're very tetchy about 1938 (the French Turn), and the involvement in the war in Spain, but a genuine proletarian current nevertheless.

After that it goes over to the bourgeoisie, I'm afraid. We think it's necessary for Trotskyists to break with modern Trotskyism to become revolutionaries.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Very few Marxists have the right to make criticisms of people on the basis of principle vs pragmatism, since Marxists pretty much consistently abandon principle in favour of a "pragmatic" approaches.

That's probably more true of Marxist-Leninists, who do admittedly make up the majority of those of us labelled 'Marxists'.

I would say those outside of the Leninist bracket of Marxists, though, actually are somewhat the opposite - looking at the communist left, they strike me as the most principled, and least pragmatic, bunch around. Probably even more so than any anarchist.

[Blake's Baby]

I'd say that the Impossiblists are possibly less pragmatic than the Left Communists. And no less principled (though obviously not more so). Even Anarchists like the SPGB (because William Morris was mates with Kropotkin back in the day).

[Thirsty Crow]

I'd say that the Impossiblists are possibly less pragmatic than the Left Communists. And no less principled (though obviously not more so). Even Anarchists like the SPGB (because William Morris was mates with Kropotkin back in the day).
I don't this has anything to do with pragmatism and principles, but with two things: the overall understanding of capital and its state, and with the strategy based on this.

[Blake's Baby]

I don't this has anything to do with pragmatism and principles, but with two things: the overall understanding of capital and its state, and with the strategy based on this.

You're right, of course. But I think 'the Boss' meant 'willing to compromise principles for power'. Neither Left Comms nor Impossiblists are going to do that.

But also 'pragmatic' in this context could be opposed to ineffectual and/or idealistic. And I think the SPGB beat the Left Comms on that score.

[Thirsty Crow]

You're right, of course. But I think 'the Boss' meant 'willing to compromise principles for power'. Neither Left Comms nor Impossiblists are going to do that.Honestly, if I'd think that such a compromise actually made sense in that it was tactically viable, I'd advocate it. But the point is that, at least in my case, principles are not axioms, but rather derived from the experience of the labor movement and communist organizations, implying the understanding I talk about. So it hardly makes sense to be "pragmatic" in the sense of this dichotomy. Opportunism is a dead end.


But also 'pragmatic' in this context could be opposed to ineffectual and/or idealistic. And I think the SPGB beat the Left Comms on that score.
Well it could be I guess. I think the Impossibilists have their vision and follow it rigorously. Though, I don't think this vision is complete or accurate enough.
But we'd all do ourselves a favor if we reminded ourselves that every pro-revolutionary organization is ineffectual, and that it is necessarily so, in certain conditions.

[Blake's Baby]

Holding tight to 'the right thing' in the current period is better than holding tight to 'the wrong thing'. With the implication that what the Left Comms are holding on to is more complete and accurate than what the Impossiblists are holding on to. But we're both good at holding tight. That's the sum total of my point.

[argeiphontes]

Socialism in one country is impossible (so the situation in Russia, isolated as it was, could not move towards socialism).


In what way(s) would a revolution in Germany (or any size subset of the world's nations, even all of them) have helped Lenin create true socialism in Russia?

[Thirsty Crow]

Holding tight to 'the right thing' in the current period is better than holding tight to 'the wrong thing'. With the implication that what the Left Comms are holding on to is more complete and accurate than what the Impossiblists are holding on to. But we're both good at holding tight. That's the sum total of my point.
Well, actually, organizations such as Battaglia do not hold tight to previously devised activities, but also engage in something fairly new (or not; but it seems like a novelty for left com orgs), and by that I mean the affiliate groups approach (essentially discussion groups centered on workplaces which comprise communists and militant workers who are not recruited, but rather engaged with on a common, working class basis).


In what way(s) would a revolution in Germany (or any size subset of the world's nations, even all of them) have helped Lenin create true socialism in Russia?
Helping out militarily, thereby releasing the Bolshevik grip on the soviets, aid in industrial equipment and technical know-how, and other forms of economic aid (foodstuffs, for instance; consumer products and so on).

[Blake's Baby]

In what way(s) would a revolution in Germany (or any size subset of the world's nations, even all of them) have helped Lenin create true socialism in Russia?

Not Lenin's job to 'create true socialism in Russia. Not even the working class's job to 'create true socialism in Russia'. It's impossible to 'create true socialism' anywhere except world-wide. So any subset that doesn't include the whole planet is bound to end in failure.

If the world revolution had succeeded then the working class could begin the transformation of capitalist society to socialist society. Lenin at that point is hardly relevant. The establishment of Bolshevik control over the Russian state was a sign that the revolution was failing. If the revolution was not failing, then that wouldn't have happened or would quickly have been reversed. It was put in place as part of the 'holding operation' until the world revolution caught up with Russia.

[argeiphontes]

Not Lenin's job to 'create true socialism in Russia. Not even the working class's job to 'create true socialism in Russia'. It's impossible to 'create true socialism' anywhere except world-wide. So any subset that doesn't include the whole planet is bound to end in failure.

That begs the question, though. I'm asking why a worldwide revolution would have succeeded; what the difference is. SIOC being impossible was Lenin's idea in the first place, which sounds like a convenient excuse.

edit: This is probably OT so I'll start another thread in Theory.

[Rafiq]

Anarchism was an ideology exclusive to lower stages of proletarian consciousness during industrialization, I simply do not see how anarchism could ever provide itself useful today, when political struggle is of dire necessity. Anarchism today is a moral and ethical doctrine about the nature of hierarchy and authority, which is both anti scientific and useless. Our anarchist friends were both valiant and fierce warriors of the class struggle, but their time had ended long ago. The only synthesis between Marxist organization, politicization and Anarchist passion, proletarian chauvinism (I.e. complete and total opposition to the bourgeois state etc.) we found in Lenin, who the bourgeois called an anarchist and the anarchists called authoritarian. This is what we need today.

[Blake's Baby]

That begs the question, though. I'm asking why a worldwide revolution would have succeeded; what the difference is. SIOC being impossible was Lenin's idea in the first place, which sounds like a convenient excuse.

edit: This is probably OT so I'll start another thread in Theory.

I don't think it is, as it gets to the heart of 'what is the dictatorship of the proletariat' and 'how are we to move from capitalist society to socialist society' which are part and parcel of the divisions between Anarchism and Marxism.

Why would a successful revolution have been in a position to create a socialist society, unlike an unsuccessful one?

1 - without states and borders and after the world civil war had been won, production could have been directed at human need not on military expenditure;
2 - the massive increase in the population who are able to creatively use their time and abilities, instead of being subjected to the restraints of capitalism, would have seen an unparalleled flowering of human creativity and ingenuity;
3 - with the collectivisation of all property and consequent end of class society the state would have been left without any material basis for existence and would thus have 'withered away';
4 - the demobilisation of the armed force of the victorious revolution would have freed even more people to this process and prevented the armed bodies of the proletariat (that existed in the Russian revolutionary situation - the Red Guard, the Black Guard, the Red Army, the Maknovistas, the Checka etc) from escaping the control of the proletariat and becoming new power centres (or emergent power centres in the case of the Black Guard, which were suppressed).

[Thirsty Crow]

Anarchism was an ideology exclusive to lower stages of proletarian consciousness during industrialization, I simply do not see how anarchism could ever provide itself useful today, when political struggle is of dire necessity.Two assumptions here.

Anarchism is a monolith and an unchanging one at that.

It is anti-political.

As far as the first assumption goes, I think it is clear that such talk is simply inaccurate as the development of anarchist currents shows (probably most clearly shown in the development of FORAism and Platformism, prior to WW2).

The second assumption is more complex, but it is, in my opinion, based on Marx and Engels' characterization of Bakuninist groups as anti-political. Without going into the historical accuracy of that argument, I think it is obvious that contemporary class struggle anarchists do not denounce either 1) economic struggles of the working class (this was also an accusation made by Marx, albeit more in relation to pre-First International anarchism, i.e. Proudhonism) or 2) political struggle - if this is taken not in the sole sense of electoral campaigns (a common reductionist argument coming from the Kautsky necromancers nowdays; based on common arguments within the Second International).

[argeiphontes]

@Blake's Baby:

But why isn't it possible to have a militarized and aggressive outward policy while promoting decentralization and worker power at home? Something is wrong with this picture. Most of those points are quantitative, i.e. "if only we had more (or less) X" but I would say that it was the qualitative nature of the Bolsheviks that caused the revolution to fail.

Instead of freeing workers, they just subjugated them under a new power, the Bolsheviks. I don't see how more material goods (compare Cuba and their excuse of the US blockade), or the collectivization of more property around the world would have helped make things less authoritarian. You would have to assume that the only way to control people internally was through the use of force. If that's the case, then why would socialism be possible at all? In any disaster or other situation of scarcity, you'd have to increase the totalitarianism to control people from the outside, by a state force alien to them.

[The Feral Underclass]

Anarchism was an ideology exclusive to lower stages of proletarian consciousness during industrialization, I simply do not see how anarchism could ever provide itself useful today, when political struggle is of dire necessity. Anarchism today is a moral and ethical doctrine about the nature of hierarchy and authority, which is both anti scientific and useless. Our anarchist friends were both valiant and fierce warriors of the class struggle, but their time had ended long ago. The only synthesis between Marxist organization, politicization and Anarchist passion, proletarian chauvinism (I.e. complete and total opposition to the bourgeois state etc.) we found in Lenin, who the bourgeois called an anarchist and the anarchists called authoritarian. This is what we need today.

The fact that contemporary anarchists in industrialised nations are by-and-large completely incompetent is not an indication that the anarchist methodology and critique of hierarchy and the state is no longer valid or relevant.

[The Feral Underclass]

The second assumption is more complex, but it is, in my opinion, based on Marx and Engels' characterization of Bakuninist groups as anti-political. Without going into the historical accuracy of that argument, I think it is obvious that contemporary class struggle anarchists do not denounce either 1) economic struggles of the working class (this was also an accusation made by Marx, albeit more in relation to pre-First International anarchism, i.e. Proudhonism) or 2) political struggle - if this is taken not in the sole sense of electoral campaigns (a common reductionist argument coming from the Kautsky necromancers nowdays; based on common arguments within the Second International).

Unfortunately it's quite irrelevant what contemporary class-struggle anarchist believe and espouse, they refuse to update their practice, to consider themselves a relevant force or adapt to the changing nature of class composition and political organisation.

[Blake's Baby]

@Blake's Baby:

But why isn't it possible to have a militarized and aggressive outward policy while promoting decentralization and worker power at home? Something is wrong with this picture. Most of those points are quantitative, i.e. "if only we had more (or less) X" but I would say that it was the qualitative nature of the Bolsheviks that caused the revolution to fail.

Instead of freeing workers, they just subjugated them under a new power, the Bolsheviks. I don't see how more material goods (compare Cuba and their excuse of the US blockade), or the collectivization of more property around the world would have helped make things less authoritarian. You would have to assume that the only way to control people internally was through the use of force. If that's the case, then why would socialism be possible at all? In any disaster or other situation of scarcity, you'd have to increase the totalitarianism to control people from the outside, by a state force alien to them.

Who would?

Because the revolution failed in 1918 (the world revolution, that is) the revolution in Russia was stranded and cut off. Like a boat cast up on the shore. Unless the tide comes back in again, that boat's never going to float, no matter who's the captain or what colour the flag is.

Against whom would a single world state be opposed? If there is no external enemy, what is the state for?

What is the material basis of the state? The state is a reflection of class society - with the collectivisation of all property, classes cease to exist; there is no 'working class' or 'bourgeoisie' when everyone works and takes the benefit of that labour.

The Bolsheviks made specific mistakes - the establishment of the council of people's commissars for example - in the context of taking over the Russian state for the purpose of hanging on to the gains of the revolution. This was only necessary (not the policy, but the situation of having to hang on) because of the revolution's failure.

A successful revolution would have given the Bolsheviks the opportunity to correct these mistakes instead of hardening them into a dogma to be handed on to their stunted and idiotic successors; and it would have given the world working class the opportunity to make its own revolution with or without the Bolsheviks supporting it.

[Thirsty Crow]

Unfortunately it's quite irrelevant what contemporary class-struggle anarchist believe and espouse, they refuse to update their practice, to consider themselves a relevant force or adapt to the changing nature of class composition and political organisation.
That is of course true of, I believe, every single revolutionary current, with minor exceptions. So we're left with ideology as a topic of debate and as a mark of distinction.

[argeiphontes]

the revolution in Russia was stranded and cut off

Ah, so that's why the Bolsheviks took over the Soviets and sent people to the gulag. "They had no choice" but to defend and solidify their new position as the rulers.

[Blake's Baby]

They thought that they needed to to 'preserve the revolutionary gains', if that's what you mean.

Do I agree with them? No.

Did they think they needed to do it? Yes.

[The Feral Underclass]

That is of course true of, I believe, every single revolutionary current, with minor exceptions. So we're left with ideology as a topic of debate and as a mark of distinction.

I don't think that's necessarily true. There are sections of the anarchist movements, Trotkyists and Maoists who are making serious efforts. It's not like there exists no one in the world who are taking themselves seriously.

Contemporary anarchists in Britain just aren't really interested in doing that.

[Thirsty Crow]

I don't think that's necessarily true. There are sections of the anarchist movements, Trotkyists and Maoists who are making serious efforts. It's not like there exists no one in the world who are taking themselves seriously.

Contemporary anarchists in Britain just aren't really interested in doing that.
You'd have to be more specific, but yeah I tend to be more pessimistic than necessary in relation to the actually existing radical left.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Did they think they needed to do it? Yes.

For their own survival, yes. But as a move towards socialism? Probably not. It was doomed to failure, if the goal was socialism, at that time.

[The Feral Underclass]

You'd have to be more specific

About which bit?

[Thirsty Crow]

About which bit?
The specific orgs and their activities since I don't know what you're referring to.

[The Feral Underclass]

The specific orgs and their activities since I don't know what you're referring to.

British platformists/specifists, autonomist, and the SWP splits have all attempted to tackle the issue of regroupment.

[Art Vandelay]

The fact that contemporary anarchists in industrialised nations are by-and-large completely incompetent is not an indication that the anarchist methodology and critique of hierarchy and the state is no longer valid or relevant.

Their critique of the state is centered upon the old liberal adage of power corrupts, regardless if subjectively anarchists are unable to see this; the mantra of hierarchical organization reproducing the conditions for their own existence, unless backed by a serious examination of the actual nuts and bolts of how this phenomenon transpires (which I have never seen), is nothing but a rehashing of that liberal dogma.

[GeorgeZinn]

New to Revleft. I see one person with IOPS. I joined last year. Surprised it hasn't gained more members. Especially given Chomsky's endorsement. Is there much commentary in rev left on IOPS?

[Jimmie Higgins]

For their own survival, yes. But as a move towards socialism? Probably not. It was doomed to failure, if the goal was socialism, at that time.I think to take that view requires heinseight. It would have been very hard to know in the first years after the revolution that they would be isolated - especially when there was a whole wave of unrest in many parts of Europe resulting in insurrection attempts or revolts leading to (reformist) Socialist Parties coming to power; the two red years in Italy and insurrections in Germany. Not to mention once out on a limb, it wasn't like the Bolsheviks in 1918 could have just said, "I'm sorry we were mistaken, re-instate the parlementary government" (not without Stalin-level repression guarenteed anyway). Not that what happened was the only subjective thing that could have happened, there are any number of different subjective ways things could have gone which might have made conditions better or worse (compared to how they played out) in the short-term. But ultimately I think the larger historical pressures meant that either a stronger groups of workers in other countries came to power which would create the potential to move forward (and would make Russia the "most backwards socialist movement in comparison according to Lenin) or some other group in society would use repression in order to supress the population and bring a kind of order to Russia.

[The Feral Underclass]

Their critique of the state is centered upon the old liberal adage of power corrupts

What liberalism are you referring to? At the time that anarchism was starting to take form, classical liberalism -- a capitalist ideology -- sought to protect the individual by limiting the existence of a continued government, protecting private property and maintaining the free market (and by extension profit), while at the same time asserting that human beings were inherently selfish and egotistical.

Anarchism on the other hand developed as an anti-capitalist set of ideas that rejected the idea there should be any government; that any political power existing to exert political control over the proletariat (specifically) should be smashed. It also claimed that human beings were social animals who are better served working in solidarity, and aimed to abolish private property and establish a society without profit or free markets.

In other words you have a set of ideas that were inherently capitalist and conservative, desiring the maintenance of the status quo, and another set of ideas that stood in radical contradiction. Bakunin essentially rejected classical liberalism in his text 'Ethics: Morality of the State.'

On the idea of "power corrupting" itself, specifically: if you actually examine where this statement comes from and ultimately how it relates to anarchism, you can clearly see that what you're saying is nonsense. The classical liberal Lord Acton was the one who said "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" in a 1882 letter to a Bishop. Acton said this because, as I note above, classical liberals believed that human beings were inherently selfish and egotistical and therefore there required checks and balances in order to safeguard the individual and their property from state tyranny.

Bakunin pre-dated that remark when he talked about the dangers of command. A 1867 text called 'Power Corrupts the Best' outlines his views and this would go on to form part of the chapter 'The State and Marxism' in his pamphlet, 'Marxism, Freedom and the State.'

But what did Bakunin actually mean when he said, "nothing is more dangerous for man's private morality than the habit of command"? He certainly wasn't talking about human beings being inherently selfish and egotistical, and he most definitely wasn't talking about trying to establish some kinds of checks and balances for the continued existence of the state.

His remarks come from the basis that command, authority, hierarchy (all things that are inherent within a state) are social relationships that necessarily negate the ability for humans to create a society in which we can live freely, with autonomy and as equals.

At the time of Bakunin talking about this, Europe was largely controlled by monarchs with authoritarian states, which is where classical liberals come in, aiming to loosen those authoritarian states. Bakunin believed in smashing them! Identifying the need to overcome these social relations in order for the proletariat to truly liberate itself.

When Marx began talking about a socialist state, or a workers' state, Bakunin's criticism was that the same social relations were being reproduced and therefore the reproduction of these social relations would stand in the way of establishing a communist or collectivist society.

Bakunin recognised that authority or the state would reproduce social relations that were inherently antithetical to working class liberation, much in the same way as patriarchy and racism are. This stands in stark opposition to liberal ideas of government and is, in essence, a total negation of those views.

To recap: firstly, the liberal adage of "power corrupts" post-dates anarchist views on the nature of hierarchy and power, so if anything the liberal adage is a deformed "rehash" of anarchist ideas. Secondly, Bakunin's views on the corruption of power was not that human beings would become corruptible by power, but that social relationships inherent within the state could not produce liberatory conditions and would inevitable lead to the negation of a revolution, which incidentally is precisely what happened.

So, when you claim that anarchism is "centered upon the old liberal adage", how do you imagine this is actually the case? This idiotic accusation against anarchism is made constantly, but comes both from a place of ignorance of the actual texts and a complete misunderstanding of both liberalism and anarchism.


the mantra of hierarchical organization reproducing the conditions for their own existence, unless backed by a serious examination of the actual nuts and bolts of how this phenomenon transpires (which I have never seen), is nothing but a rehashing of that liberal dogma.

LOL. What you're saying is that because you have never read a text about the views of anarchists those views are just liberal dogma? That is basically what that paragraph means. I don't really understand how not seeing such texts makes the views liberal dogma? That doesn't make any sense.

Also, what does "hierarchical organization reproducing the conditions for their own existence" mean?

[synthesis]

Two questions that I'm framing as replies to Blake's Baby but are open to answers from anyone:


The revolution quickly degenerated. It could hardly do anything else. Socialism in one country is impossible (so the situation in Russia, isolated as it was, could not move towards socialism). Unless Russia was to exist in stasis until the revolution in the rest of the world 'caught up' (as the Trotskyists believe) then it had to degenerate.

1. I realize this might be getting into Menshevist territory, but while it's obviously true that "socialism in one country" is basically impossible, does nobody think it's also significant that the feudal mode of production was still so prevalent in Russia in 1917?


Left Comms tend to think Trotsky was a great revolutionary. Like Lenin. We're not totally opposed to them. But we don't think they're supermen either. They both have positives and negatives.

2. I was under the impression that at least a certain segment of left-communists either supported the Kronstadt uprising or disapproved of Trotsky's harsh suppression of it. Is this a point of contention between the German-Dutch and Italian traditions, or am I just mistaken?

[Blake's Baby]

Two questions that I'm framing as replies to Blake's Baby but are open to answers from anyone:



1. I realize this might be getting into Menshevist territory, but while it's obviously true that "socialism in one country" is basically impossible, does nobody think it's also significant that the feudal mode of production was still so prevalent in Russia in 1917?
...

Russia was the 5th biggest world economy in 1913; it had the largest factory in the world in 1917 (the Putilov Works in Petrograd, with 40,000 workers in it); it had a massive working class.

Sure there was an even bigger peasantry, but an interesting idea (I thought) came up in a discussion around this recently - Russia essentially had an empire that was contiguous with its metropole. Britain and France didn't; their empires were overseas. If Britain's empire was all joined together (India and East Africa and Australia and whatnot) would we still think of Britain as 'industrialised'? The non-industrialised sectors of the economy of the empire would far outnumber the industrial base in Britain. Would the British Empire then not be ripe for revolution? Would it be the job of the British bourgeoisie to 'develop' the colonies before socialism would be possible?

It's the international development that is important, not the development in any particular country. No country is 'ripe for socialism' on its own... because socialism in one country is impossible.



...2. I was under the impression that at least a certain segment of left-communists either supported the Kronstadt uprising or disapproved of Trotsky's harsh suppression of it. Is this a point of contention between the German-Dutch and Italian traditions, or am I just mistaken?

I've been told that some of the Italian Left Communists supported the suppression of Kronstadt. It seems very strange to me as it was the Italian Left (in my understanding) that later came to the conclusion that 'no relations of force between proletarians should exist'.

I don't know of any Left Comms now who support the suppression of Kronstadt. As I say, Lenin and Trotsky are neither supermen nor devils. The suppression of Kronstadt doesn't mean other things they did and said are not positive gains for the working class. The positive things they did and said do not mean that they were not bitterly wrong about a host of other things, including the suppression of Kronstadt.

[synthesis]

I don't think the fact that the feudal mode of production was still so relatively prevalent, regardless of the size of Russia's economy, can be readily dismissed in a historical analysis of the Soviet Union.

Rosa Luxemburg, as I understand from her essay "Leninism or Marxism," argued that "despotic centralism" was an inherent aspect of the feudal mode of production; the capitalist mode of production, thusly, eventually but necessarily lends itself to bourgeois democracy, upon which proletarian revolution can be built. Another argument that I've seen, and that she seems to express, is that the peasantry didn't want the dictatorship of the proletariat - they just wanted more land, which is what the Bolsheviks gave them. The fact that capitalism had not yet superceded the feudal mode of production in Russia was a major factor in her analysis of Bolshevism as fundamentally opportunist.


In general, it is rigorous, despotic centralism that is preferred by opportunist intellectuals at a time when the revolutionary elements among the workers still lack cohesion and the movement is groping its way, as is the case now in Russia. In a later phase, under a parliamentary regime and in connection with a strong labor party, the opportunist tendencies of the intellectuals express themselves in an inclination toward "decentralization."

...

Let us not forget that the revolution soon to break out in Russia will be a bourgeois and not a proletarian revolution. This modifies radically all the conditions of socialist struggle. The Russian intellectuals, too, will rapidly become imbued with bourgeois ideology. The Social Democracy is at present the only guide of the Russian proletariat. But on the day after the revolution, we shall see the bourgeoisie and above all the bourgeois masses as a steppingstone to their domination.

-Rosa, 1904

[Blake's Baby]

I don't think the fact that the feudal mode of production was still so relatively prevalent, regardless of the size of Russia's economy, can be readily dismissed in a historical analysis of the Soviet Union.

Rosa Luxemburg, as I understand from her essay "Leninism or Marxism," argued that "despotic centralism" was an inherent aspect of the feudal mode of production; the capitalist mode of production, thusly, eventually but necessarily lends itself to bourgeois democracy, upon which proletarian revolution can be built. Another argument that I've seen, and that she seems to express, is that the peasantry didn't want the dictatorship of the proletariat - they just wanted more land, which is what the Bolsheviks gave them. The fact that capitalism had not yet superceded the feudal mode of production in Russia was a major factor in her analysis of Bolshevism as fundamentally opportunist.


What do you mean though 'the feudal mode of production'? It had been finally done away with in 1868 (and even then, only in the areas where it actually existed and hadn't already been abolished). There was no 'feudal' production in Russia. There was a massive agricultural sector, yes; there was a massive peasantry, yes; but there wasn't feudalism. It was capitalism and had been for half a century.

Rosa came to see that it was the international development of capitalism that was important. Between 1904 and 1918, through further investigating economics (whatever one thinks of 'The Accumulation of Capital' it's undeniable that it looks at capitalism in its global scope), under the pressure of the war and then the revolution, she changed her view. This is why in 1918 she was saying that though the questions had been posed in Russia, they could not be solved there (because socialism in one country is impossible...) but that, everywhere, 'the future belongs to Bolshevism'.

[synthesis]

What do you mean though 'the feudal mode of production'? It had been finally done away with in 1868 (and even then, only in the areas where it actually existed and hadn't already been abolished). There was no 'feudal' production in Russia. There was a massive agricultural sector, yes; there was a massive peasantry, yes; but there wasn't feudalism. It was capitalism and had been for half a century.

Rosa came to see that it was the international development of capitalism that was important. Between 1904 and 1918, through further investigating economics (whatever one thinks of 'The Accumulation of Capital' it's undeniable that it looks at capitalism in its global scope), under the pressure of the war and then the revolution, she changed her view. This is why in 1918 she was saying that though the questions had been posed in Russia, they could not be solved there (because socialism in one country is impossible...) but that, everywhere, 'the future belongs to Bolshevism'.

Well, I don't think a country has to be pigeonholed into one mode of production or another. The degree to which the peasantry and aristocracy still have influence is the degree to which the feudal mode of production still exists. You admit that there was still a significant peasant population, and there was still a royal family that was deemed so important, symbolically or otherwise, that the Bolsheviks went out of their way to kill every member of it. (I'm not trying to moralize here, just saying that this reflects the influence of the aristocracy even after feudalism was "officially" abolished.) The aristocracy-and-peasantry is a feudal paradigm, and feudalism can't just be "abolished" as a mode of production, especially not by the aristocracy itself - it has to be overthrown by a revolution.

[Blake's Baby]

Was Britain 'feudal' in 1917 because it had a royal family? Was Germany, that also had a royal family? Was America, that also (pre-1929) had a significant peasant (=independent farmer) population? Was France, which had a significant peasant population until WWII?

My understanding is that these were, on the contrary, the most advanced capitalist nations on the planet. Perhaps, though they were feudal, and we're only now beginning to enter the period of capitalism's domination of the planet.

[synthesis]

Was Britain 'feudal' in 1917 because it had a royal family? Was Germany, that also had a royal family? Was America, that also (pre-1929) had a significant peasant (=independent farmer) population? Was France, which had a significant peasant population until WWII?

My understanding is that these were, on the contrary, the most advanced capitalist nations on the planet. Perhaps, though they were feudal, and we're only now beginning to enter the period of capitalism's domination of the planet.

Again, I disagree with this notion that the boundaries separating nations produce some mystical quality that means they can only be possessed of one mode of production. And no, the simple presence of a royal family doesn't indicate the presence of feudalism; the degree of influence they hold politically is a much better barometer, and I don't think the Bolsheviks would have made such a point of liquidating the entire royal family if they didn't think that their opponents, many just pro-monarchists, would be significantly demoralized by it.

[Blake's Baby]

So, do you think we're not living in capitalism?

I don't see capitalism as being 'all or nothing' in one state or outside it; but if you're looking at generalised tendencies, then maybe in 1917 the world wasn't ready for socialism. Do you think it is now? If it wasn't then but it is now,m when did capitalism sufficiently dominate the world to make socialism a possibility?

I don't think you can ever divine the answer from looking at one country.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Blake - a better question than 'was Britain feudal in 1917 because it still had a monarchy?' would be: 'was England feudal in the period dating from around the late 15th to mid-17th century?'

I don't think it's possible to say 'the mode of production changed in [insert specific year].' Political revolutions abound, in a revolutionary manner, but actually historically the move from a feudal system of production to a capitalist one has not happened overnight, nor in a year, decade or, in Britain's case, even over a century. It is highly possible to think of Russia in the late 19th/early 20th century as similar to England in the 15th and 16th centuries: an economy based upon a decaying feudalism, and a nascent capitalism.

Rather than arguing the specifics of whether it was feudal, capitalist, or somewhere in between (i've done that, and it's fucking tiresome and a bit pointless), we might be better exploring whether, by 1917, capitalism was developed enough - in terms of the class composition of society, the class consciousness of the proletariat, the level of urbanisation, domestic food production, political factors i.e. the level of development of bourgeois democracy - to support an expression of working class political power and the enactment of socialism as a system. I'd hesitate to answer in the affirmative on that one, though i'm not expert on Russia.

[Blake's Baby]

Blake - a better question than 'was Britain feudal in 1917 because it still had a monarchy?' would be: 'was England feudal in the period dating from around the late 15th to mid-17th century?'...

Obviously, my answer would be 'yes leading to no'. I agree it's impossible to pin these things down to a specific year, but between (around) 1300 and (around) 1600 capitalism developed extensively in England. By 1600, I think yes you can say England was a 'capitalist' country.


...
Rather than arguing the specifics of whether it was feudal, capitalist, or somewhere in between (i've done that, and it's fucking tiresome and a bit pointless), we might be better exploring whether, by 1917, capitalism was developed enough - in terms of the class composition of society, the class consciousness of the proletariat, the level of urbanisation, domestic food production, political factors i.e. the level of development of bourgeois democracy - to support an expression of working class political power and the enactment of socialism as a system. I'd hesitate to answer in the affirmative on that one, though i'm not expert on Russia.

That was rather the point I was trying to make.

1 - Russia was a society that (like many others) had both capitalist development, and 'feudal hangovers';
2 - these feudal hangovers did not however make the system feudal (any more than in England, Germany, America or France) because - as you say - by 1917 capitalism was 'developed enough' for the establishment of socialist society;
3 - not 'in Russia', but 'in the world'.

And I'm trying to find out if synthesis disagrees with me.

[synthesis]

I guess I don't really see the relevance of whether or not the world is "ready for socialism." (Because tone doesn't really carry across the Internet, I'm not just saying that in reference to this particular argument; I'm talking about the entire concept of "being ready for socialism.") If the 1917 revolution failed in the sense of being a first step towards global working class revolution, then it seems self-evident to me that it wasn't "ready for socialism." I personally see it as a bourgeois revolution in a historical sense - meaning that it's not necessarily possible to see it as such when you're in the thick of it.

And yeah, I think we're living in capitalism, in that the feudal mode of production is dead in pretty much every country but Bhutan, as far as I know. I just don't see how the strength of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" doesn't depend on the material numbers and strength of the proletariat, in relation to the numbers and strength of other classes like the aristocracy and peasantry, something that becomes less and less relevant as bourgeois revolutions begin to eliminate that paradigm.

Finally, although this seems to be getting into an entirely different topic of discussion, I strongly disagree with the idea that capitalism was dominant in England by the 1600's. The first industrial revolution didn't happen until 1760, and in my mind it was in large part this revolution of production processes, with its accompanying rural-to-urban migrations, that led Marx to formulate his theories of capitalism, feudalism and socialism.

[Blake's Baby]

Fine. If you think 'capitalism' means 'cities' and 'feudalism' means 'agriculture', then so be it. But we're going to find it hard to have a conversation. Capitalism as far as I'm concerned is wages and commodity production. That develops from about 1300, with the silver economy, the rise in markets, the professionalisation of the army and the beginnings of enclosure which provides a proletariat.

But: 'the strength of the dictatorship of the proletariat' depends on a lot of things, not just the 'balance of class forces'. It also depends on the international situation. If the revolution fails to spread, the revolution fails full stop. So what you're left with is an aborted revolution that has gone further in one place than another, but then stopped. The revolution in Russia was 'bourgeois' in that it failed to escape capitalism (socialism in one country is impossible after all); so the relative weight of the peasantry and proletariat is unimportant, I'd argue. It's a difference of degree, not type.

Imagine a country that had a workers' revolution. It's a large country with a big agrarian sector and relatively small and concentrated proletariat. A country like Russia. It has a lot of feudal hangovers like an aristocracy. You might expect the revolution there to proceed in a manner similar to the revolution in Russia. How long can the revolution last before it's overwhelmed - from within, or without? Six months? Two years? Seventy years?

What about a small, densely-populated, heavily industrialised country? How would you see the process happening there? How long could an isolated revolution hold on there? A year? Three years? Seventy years?

Isolated, a revolution can only ever be 'national'. It can only ever re-organise the domestic economy. It will always be bourgeois.

Imagine you are part of a group of people on the bank of a river. This side of the river is called Here. You want to cross to There, but the river cannot be swum or forded, you must build a bridge. But there are nasty people about, you have to protect youself while you do it. So, the first task is to build a stockade about the camp you have established. Once you have finished the stockade, you find out there isn't enough wood to build the bridge. You hope and expect other people will bring wood, but no other people come. So you are left with a truncated bridge that doesn't get where you want to go. After a while, you kid yourself that this is what you were trying to do all along and call the inside of the stockade 'There'. But it's not really; it's still Here.

The intention of the revolution in Russia was not to develop national capitalism. It just couldn't do anything else, stuck as it was with a truncated bridge that went no-where, in the absence of a world revolution.

[synthesis]

Well, no, I don't think feudalism is synonymous with an agricultural economy or that capitalism just means "cities" - I'm not sure where you're getting this from. Wage labor is obviously a key factor that differentiates capitalism from feudalism, but do you really think the capitalist mode of production has nothing to do with industrialization? Remember that the agricultural sector itself has become industrialized over the last couple centuries.

Relations of production are only half of what makes up a mode of production; the other half is the nature of productive forces, which certainly involves whether or not industrialization has occurred within whatever boundaries it is said that the working class holds power.

edit: Would you say that this Wikipedia passage is an inaccurate representation of Marx's writings, or that I'm misinterpreting it here? I'm only using this because I can't remember exactly where to look for direct quotes from Marx to support my argument.


For the capitalist mode of production to emerge as a distinctive mode of production dominating the whole production process of society, many different social, economic, cultural, technical and legal-political conditions had to come together.

For most of human history, these did not come together. Capital existed, commercial trade existed, but it did not lead to industrialisation and large-scale capitalist industry. That required a whole series of new conditions, namely specific technologies of mass production, the ability to independently and privately own and trade in means of production, a class of workers compelled to sell their labor power for a living, a legal framework promoting commerce, a physical infrastructure making the circulation of goods on a large scale possible, security for private accumulation, and so on. In many Third World countries, many of these conditions do not exist even today, even although there is plenty capital and labour available; the obstacles for the development of capitalist markets are less a technical matter and more a social, cultural and political problem.

A society, region or nation is “capitalist” if the predominant source of incomes and products being distributed is capitalist activity; even so, this does not yet mean necessarily that the capitalist mode of production is dominant in that society.

[Blake's Baby]

Well, no, I don't think feudalism is synonymous with an agricultural economy or that capitalism just means "cities" - I'm not sure where you're getting this from. Wage labor is obviously a key factor that differentiates capitalism from feudalism, but do you really think the capitalist mode of production has nothing to do with industrialization? Remember that the agricultural sector itself has become industrialized over the last couple centuries.

Relations of production are only half of what makes up a mode of production; the other half is the nature of productive forces, which certainly involves whether or not industrialization has occurred within whatever boundaries it is said that the working class holds power.

edit: Would you say that this Wikipedia passage is an inaccurate representation of Marx's writings, or that I'm misinterpreting it here? I'm only using this because I can't remember exactly where to look for direct quotes from Marx to support my argument.

The only thing in what you quoted that I'd agree is a necessary feature of capitalism is wage labour ("a class of workers compelled to sell their labor power for a living"). Markets of some kind are also necessary, because capitalism is about the production of commodities; but capitalism still exists when markets are precarious, unregulated, have bad infrastructure, or in some cases don't formally exist, etc.

I don't even understand the last bit: how can an economic form that is the "predominant source of incomes and products" no also be the "dominant" economic form?

[synthesis]

I don't even understand the last bit: how can an economic form that is the "predominant source of incomes and products" no also be the "dominant" economic form?

My understanding is that the latter category depends on the prevalence of the bourgeois/proletarian paradigm. Also, I realized I didn't link to the specific article where I found it, which is here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_mode_of_production#Origins). Somewhat frustratingly, it doesn't cite any sources.

What are your thoughts on these passages from Grundrisse and its relevance to this discussion? (Bold emphases mine, italic emphases in original source. Sorry about the walls of text; that's why I tried to bold the parts I think are relevant. See the note at the bottom if you think I'm an asshole for this.)


The exchange of living labour for objectified labour – i.e. the positing of social labour in the form of the contradiction of capital and wage labour – is the ultimate development of the value-relation and of production resting on value. Its presupposition is – and remains – the mass of direct labour time, the quantity of labour employed, as the determinant factor in the production of wealth. But to the degree that large industry develops, the creation of real wealth comes to depend less on labour time and on the amount of labour employed than on the power of the agencies set in motion during labour time, whose ‘powerful effectiveness’ is itself in turn out of all proportion to the direct labour time spent on their production, but depends rather on the general state of science and on the progress of technology, or the application of this science to production. (The development of this science, especially natural science, and all others with the latter, is itself in turn related to the development of material production.) Agriculture, e.g., becomes merely the application of the science of material metabolism, its regulation for the greatest advantage of the entire body of society. Real wealth manifests itself, rather – and large industry reveals this – in the monstrous disproportion between the labour time applied, and its product, as well as in the qualitative imbalance between labour, reduced to a pure abstraction, and the power of the production process it superintends. Labour no longer appears so much to be included within the production process; rather, the human being comes to relate more as watchman and regulator to the production process itself. (What holds for machinery holds likewise for the combination of human activities and the development of human intercourse.) No longer does the worker insert a modified natural thing [Naturgegenstand] as middle link between the object [Objekt] and himself; rather, he inserts the process of nature, transformed into an industrial process, as a means between himself and inorganic nature, mastering it. He steps to the side of the production process instead of being its chief actor. In this transformation, it is neither the direct human labour he himself performs, nor the time during which he works, but rather the appropriation of his own general productive power, his understanding of nature and his mastery over it by virtue of his presence as a social body – it is, in a word, the development of the social individual which appears as the great foundation-stone of production and of wealth. The theft of alien labour time, on which the present wealth is based, appears a miserable foundation in face of this new one, created by large-scale industry itself. As soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the great well-spring of wealth, labour time ceases and must cease to be its measure, and hence exchange value [must cease to be the measure] of use value. The surplus labour of the mass has ceased to be the condition for the development of general wealth, just as the non-labour of the few, for the development of the general powers of the human head. With that, production based on exchange value breaks down, and the direct, material production process is stripped of the form of penury and antithesis. The free development of individualities, and hence not the reduction of necessary labour time so as to posit surplus labour, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labour of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them. Capital itself is the moving contradiction, that it presses to reduce labour time to a minimum, while it posits labour time, on the other side, as sole measure and source of wealth. Hence it diminishes labour time in the necessary form so as to increase it in the superfluous form; hence posits the superfluous in growing measure as a condition – question of life or death – for the necessary. On the one side, then, it calls to life all the powers of science and of nature, as of social combination and of social intercourse, in order to make the creation of wealth independent (relatively) of the labour time employed on it. On the other side, it wants to use labour time as the measuring rod for the giant social forces thereby created, and to confine them within the limits required to maintain the already created value as value. Forces of production and social relations – two different sides of the development of the social individual – appear to capital as mere means, and are merely means for it to produce on its limited foundation. In fact, however, they are the material conditions to blow this foundation sky-high. ‘Truly wealthy a nation, when the working day is 6 rather than 12 hours. Wealth is not command over surplus labour time’ (real wealth), ‘but rather, disposable time outside that needed in direct production, for every individual and the whole society.’ (The Source and Remedy etc. 1821, p. 6.)

Nature builds no machines, no locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-acting mules etc. These are products of human industry; natural material transformed into organs of the human will over nature, or of human participation in nature. They are organs of the human brain, created by the human hand; the power of knowledge, objectified. The development of fixed capital indicates to what degree general social knowledge has become a [I]direct force of production, and to what degree, hence, the conditions of the process of social life itself have come under the control of the general intellect and been transformed in accordance with it. To what degree the powers of social production have been produced, not only in the form of knowledge, but also as immediate organs of social practice, of the real life process.


The smaller the direct fruits borne by fixed capital, the less it intervenes in the direct production process, the greater must be this relative surplus population and surplus production; thus, more to build railways, canals, aqueducts, telegraphs etc. than to build the machinery directly active in the direct production process. Hence – a subject to which we will return later – in the constant under- and overproduction of modern industry – constant fluctuations and convulsions arise from the disproportion, when sometimes too little, then again too much circulating capital is transformed into fixed capital.

<The creation of a large quantity of disposable time apart from necessary labour time for society generally and each of its members (i.e. room for the development of the individuals’ full productive forces, hence those of society also), this creation of not-labour time appears in the stage of capital, as of all earlier ones, as not-labour time, free time, for a few. What capital adds is that it increases the surplus labour time of the mass by all the means of art and science, because its wealth consists directly in the appropriation of surplus labour time; since value directly its purpose, not use value. It is thus, despite itself, instrumental in creating the means of social disposable time, in order to reduce labour time for the whole society to a diminishing minimum, and thus to free everyone’s time for their own development. But its tendency always, on the one side, to create disposable time, on the other, to convert it into surplus labour.If it succeeds too well at the first, then it suffers from surplus production, and then necessary labour is interrupted, because no surplus labour can be realized by capital. The more this contradiction develops, the more does it become evident that the growth of the forces of production can no longer be bound up with the appropriation of alien labour, but that the mass of workers must themselves appropriate their own surplus labour. Once they have done so – and disposable time thereby ceases to have an antithetical existence – then, on one side, necessary labour time will be measured by the needs of the social individual, and, on the other, the development of the power of social production will grow so rapidly that, even though production is now calculated for the wealth of all, disposable time will grow for all. For real wealth is the developed productive power of all individuals. The measure of wealth is then not any longer, in any way, labour time, but rather disposable time. Labour time as the measure of value posits wealth itself as founded on poverty, and disposable time as existing in and because of the antithesis to surplus labour time; or, the positing of an individual’s entire time as labour time, and his degradation therefore to mere worker, subsumption under labour. The most developed machinery thus forces the worker to work longer than the savage does, or than he himself did with the simplest, crudest tools.>


As the system of bourgeois economy has developed for us only by degrees, so too its negation, which is its ultimate result. We are still concerned now with the direct production process. When we consider bourgeois society in the long view and as a whole, then the final result of the process of social production always appears as the society itself, i.e. the human being itself in its social relations. Everything that has a fixed form, such as the product etc., appears as merely a moment, a vanishing moment, in this movement. The direct production process itself here appears only as a moment. The conditions and objectifications of the process are themselves equally moments of it, and its only subjects are the individuals, but individuals in mutual relationships, which they equally reproduce and produce anew. The constant process of their own movement, in which they renew themselves even as they renew the world of wealth they create.


There can be no doubt whatever that the cycle which industry has passed through since the development of fixed capital on a large scale, at more or less 10-yearly intervals, is connected with this total reproduction phase of capital. We shall find other determinant causes as well. But this is one of them. There were good and bad times for industry before, too, as well as for harvests (agriculture). But the industrial cycle of a number of years, divided into characteristic periods, epochs, is peculiar to large-scale industry.


Agriculture forms a mode of production sui generis, because the organic process is involved, in addition to the mechanical and chemical process, and the natural reproduction process is merely controlled and guided; extractive industry (mining the most important) is likewise an industry sui generis, because no reproduction process whatever takes place in it, at least not one under our control or known to us. (Fishery, hunting etc. can involve a reproduction process; likewise forestry; this is therefore not necessarily purely extractive industry.) Now, in so far as the means of production, fixed capital as the product of capital and hence containing objectified surplus time, is itself constituted in such a way that it can be ejected by its producer as circulating capital, e.g. like machinery by the machine builder, before it becomes fixed capital, i.e. first enters into circulation as use value, [to that extent] its circulation contains no new aspect whatever.

I think this part should clarify the confusion about capitalism being the dominant source of "incomes and products" while not necessarily being the dominant mode of production:


When an industrial people producing on the foundation of capital, such as the English, e.g., exchange with the Chinese, and absorb value in the form of money and commodity from out of their production process, or rather absorb value by drawing the latter within the sphere of the circulation of their capital, then one sees right away that the Chinese do not therefore need to produce as capitalists. Within a single society, such as the English, the mode of production of capital develops in one branch of industry, while in another, e.g. agriculture, modes of production predominate which more or less antedate capital. Nevertheless, it is (1) its necessary tendency to conquer the mode of production in all respects, to bring them under the rule of capital. Within a given national society this already necessarily arises from the transformation, by this means, of all labour into wage labour; (2) as to external markets, capital imposes this propagation of its mode of production through international competition.

All these quotes are from here (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch14.htm). I realize it's kind of a dick move to just dump all this text on you without a strong analysis of why I'm citing them; I don't expect you to concede that I'm right because of these passages - all I want is to illustrate that the concepts I've been talking about were in fact present in Marx's analysis of the capitalist mode of production.

[Blake's Baby]

My own view is that Marx wasn't always very clear when talking about 'capitalism' because sometimes he means industrial capitalism, sometimes he means industrial capitalism and mercantile capitalism, etc.

Capitalism now is not the same as capitalism in the 17th century, but I think it's justified to call them both capitalism, because they share commodity production and wage labour. capitalism is in its essence the exploitation of surplus labour through wages, and the sale of the goods produced through some system of equivalents ('the market' or some system of accounting or credit transfer). Capitalism in the 17th century wasn't the same as the nascent capitalism of the 14th century; but the difference between them is not that one was based on ox-ploughs and the other on horse-ploughs (ie, a question of technology) but that in the 14th century capitalism was a minor part of the economy (the economy, the generalised mode of production, was feudal) but in the 17th century capitalism had expanded to be the major (dominant?) mode of production: the majority of the economy was based on commodity production and wage labour, not the bound labour/tribute system of feudalism. The change was a matter of generalisation, not technological advancement.

I haven't read the entirity of the quotes you've provided I'm afraid, much less digested them, but I will come back on this. Or, maybe, we should start a new thread on 'the development of capitalism' (though there are a few of those around already)?

[synthesis]

My own view is that Marx wasn't always very clear when talking about 'capitalism' because sometimes he means industrial capitalism, sometimes he means industrial capitalism and mercantile capitalism, etc.

Capitalism now is not the same as capitalism in the 17th century, but I think it's justified to call them both capitalism, because they share commodity production and wage labour. capitalism is in its essence the exploitation of surplus labour through wages, and the sale of the goods produced through some system of equivalents ('the market' or some system of accounting or credit transfer). Capitalism in the 17th century wasn't the same as the nascent capitalism of the 14th century; but the difference between them is not that one was based on ox-ploughs and the other on horse-ploughs (ie, a question of technology) but that in the 14th century capitalism was a minor part of the economy (the economy, the generalised mode of production, was feudal) but in the 17th century capitalism had expanded to be the major (dominant?) mode of production: the majority of the economy was based on commodity production and wage labour, not the bound labour/tribute system of feudalism. The change was a matter of generalisation, not technological advancement.

I haven't read the entirity of the quotes you've provided I'm afraid, much less digested them, but I will come back on this. Or, maybe, we should start a new thread on 'the development of capitalism' (though there are a few of those around already)?

I mean, I can't claim to have fully digested all of those quotes either. I was kind of hoping some epic Marxian uber-nerd, like the sorely missed ZeroNowhere, would weigh in here. (I really mean every word of that sentence with the utmost sincerity and respect.) I'm open to starting a new thread, but I'm pretty satisfied with the idea that the answer is a mix of both our perspectives, but considerably more complex, as (for me) it often is.